Beyond a Distant Sunrise
by coloredSkies
Summary: EDIT: Ella's life has never made much sense. There have always been gaps in information and in her own memory that have never been filled - until the day she discovers an ancient forest... and is transported to a place between history and myth.
1. Prologue

**I shouldn't be posting this. I really shouldn't be. I don't even know where this is going... its just a random moment I came up with and wrote.**

**But I couldn't help it! LotR is my new obsession… I HAD to write something!**

**So anyways, just as a warning, I'm completely winging it here. But it'll work out. It's all good ;) (I hope)**

**Hope you enjoy!**

**R&R…? Please? (No flames please! I'm a very sensitive gal)**

**Luv Ya Bunches,**

**Live :D**

"_Red skies in morning, take heed, take warning…."_

The sun rose red, as though there had been a great battle among the stars and blood had been spilled across the heavens. The plains were awash in vibrant scarlet light, yet the rolling hills were still full of the night's dark shadows.

Silhouetted against the horizon was a figure, appearing to be a tall, willowy young man, yet of strong build. He stood silent and unmoving, his arms at his sides, looking to the sky with bright eyes and a steady gaze.

Around the man were scattered dark shapes like large bundles, one human-sized, the rest smaller. As the sun continued in its slow progress upward and westward, the largest shape stirred, and soundlessly a man rose from beneath a thin blanket, cloak billowing around his robust frame. He joined the other, looking toward the coming day. The first did not acknowledge him, remaining still.

Long moments pass.

"What do you see?" There was hardly any substance to the man's voice; it was hardly more than a breath in the silence of the dawn.

There is another drawn-out pause before a reply is given. The first turns at last to his companion. "I see nothing out of the ordinary. And yet…" He trails of, returning his gaze to the sky.

"And yet…?"

"And yet, there is something in the air. Do you sense it?"

A hearty laugh rises in the throat of his comrade. "My good Elf, I am afraid I have not the foresight of your own fair race. Since, though, you have no foreboding words for me past the odd feel of the wind, we should awaken the others and set out."

The Elf allowed a soft smile, though he could not shake the strange sensation of the morning light. Before following his friend to take up once more their journey, he took one last glance at the blood-red dawn, which was already beginning to fade.

_Something shall happen on the day that this dawn has brought. There is no doubt – this day shall be unlike any other._


	2. Chapter One: To the Horizen

**_Wow! _****I am so happy! Thank you for the lovely comments, and I apologize for the long wait! I've been terribly busy of late... (hey! rhyme!)**

**Oh, and I have to clear some things up: I kinda forgot to mention that that was the _prologue… this_ is Chapter One . Also, I did some editing to the title and the summery. So be aware: _This is what used to be "A Distant Sunrise"_.**

**And now a quick Disclaimer (I don't think I did this last time either. Forgive my awful memory): I own not any of the characters / scenes / quotes from book or movie.**

**R&R! Please, no flames (as usual)!**

**Enjoy!**

**Love ya bunches,**

**Live :D**

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><p><em>I have never seen the ocean.<em>

_Cora always used to beg and beg Grandmother to take me to the beach, but never once did she comply. "You are not taking her to the sea," she would say with a glance in my direction with those icy blue eyes. "Not until the time is right."_

_"But why? What does it matter? I've been to the beach, and it isn't terribly special."_

_"Then you should be able to deal with this."_

_"No, but Grandmother, that's not what I meant! I mean –"_

_"Cora, she is not ready. Make no mention of the matter again ."_

_Grandmother never did tell us why, only saying that "it is yet too early" or "she is not ready". Ready for what, or just what time we are waiting for, we did not know. It was shrouded in mystery, as was almost everything about our Grandmother._

_I was completely lost in these thoughts, gazing at the painting in the hall of the sea. Absentmindedly, I reached up to finger the necklace she had given me, a habit of mine that started almost the moment after she died. It always seemed to be special, that pendant, or, as she had called it, that jewel. The gem was a milky, iridescent white, like a mix between an opal, a crystal, and a pearl, yet different still; I had never been able to decide what sort of mineral it was. Around it were delicate bands of silver, formed into the shapes of vines, from which sprouted fragile little leaves. It was an incredibly intricate design, a work of remarkable craftsmanship, and utterly stunning as it hung there on its fine silver chain in the hollow between my collarbones._

_I remembered vividly when Grandmother had given it to me. She had been weak with an illness no doctor could give a name, the same illness which had taken her life. I remember her voice, hoarse but strong, calling me by my full name from her room: "Elaerinya!"_

_I had hurried into her room, worried that something was wrong. Things are almost always wrong when people call me by my full name; most do not even know it exists, and think that I am just "Ella" or assume that my full name is "Eleanor". In my haste, I did not stop to think and remember that Grandmother always always called me by my full name._

_"Yes, Grandmother? What is it?" I asked, slightly breathless, opening the door and entering the room where she lay in her bed._

_She looked at me with those eyes, that intense, unwavering blue gaze, and said, "Come here, child."_

_I obeyed, and she abruptly gripped my thin arm with long fingers and spun me around, then, brushing aside my dark braid, clasped it around my neck - the necklace, cool against my skin, beautifully shining in the dimness of the room._

_"Keep it well," she had murmured, "And it shall keep you, and me with you."_

_The next morning, she passed, just as the sun rose and the pale moon faded into an equally pale sky._

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><p>The dawn light shining through the filthy attic window was a strange color - brilliant scarlet. <em>H<em>_ow unusual, _I said to myself absentmindedly, but I did not think much of it. Instead, I pulled my long hair back into its braid and shook Cora awake. "I'm going into the woods," I told her, and she replied with a series of grunts before snatching the blankets over her head and going back to sleep.

I crept down the creaky old stairs as quietly as their age and condition allowed and slipped out the back door.

The morning air was cool and fresh, and the world was awash and glimmering in dew. I stood for a moment in the shadow of the enormous Victorian-style house, which used to be Grandmother's before Cora and I had been forced to rent out the bottom to floors, and breathed deeply. This was my favorite time of day, just after the dawn.

The backyard of the house ran into a forest, a huge one, large enough that I had never really been able to go from one end to the other. I knew that, up in the north-eastern part of it, there were some ruins - or at least that was how the stories went. I smiled gently to myself, remembering those stories.

"Ruins of a fine city," my Grandmother would say, "a magical place inhabited by the fairest and wisest of beings." Her voice from when I was young echoed in my mind as I began to walk toward the woods.

"_Elves_," she'd say. "'Twas a city that the Elves made, and how they loved it. It and the land, the very land they loved. And it loved them." She'd be holding my dark hand in her thin, pale one, leading me between the trees.

"Land doesn't love," I'd say, thinking how silly she was. "It can't."

She'd turn to me then, taking my fingertips, still wrapped in her own, and press them with her gossamer touch against the bark of a nearby tree. "Listen now," she'd murmur, and she'd close her eyes, head cocked. And I would stand in the middle of the forest with my Grandmother, and I too would listen. I would hear the wind in the trees, the sound of leaves rustling. I'd heard my own breathing, and soon, even my heartbeat. Grandmother would be silent and still, until I thought her to be turned to stone.

"Do you hear it? Feel it?" She would finally say.

"I hear the wind," I would say with a frown. "And the leaves, and me. I listened real hard, but it was all real quiet."

She'd smile, open her eyes, release my hands, and say, "It's in you, my girl, deep within you yet." And then she would walk away, and I would follow, not wondering with my young mind what she meant.

I thought about those ruins as I walked, thought long and hard, and my hand went up to my jewel. And then, I decided: I would, on that very day, make the who-knows-how-long hike to see them. For the memory of my Grandmother, and for myself, I would see the Elven city she had spoken of with such longing and affection.

I looked to the rising sun, blood-red in the pale morning sky, pointed my toes to the north-east, and started toward the red horizen.


	3. Chapter Two: Skeleton Trees

**Jeez, I am one horrible person. Just despicable, the way I have so cruelly neglected this poor, innocent fanfic **

**I am so very, very sorry… I hope you all shall forgive me!**

**Anyway, I have come back now to say this: HAPPY SPRING! My computer room/ basement is no longer so cold my fingers go numb… WOOO-HOOOO! I can go back to my internet trolling! Also, this marks the start of every high-schoolers' favorite time of year: Testing Season. SAT's, finals, NYS tests, ELA's…. Alas for us all.**

**And if you have graduated… pity us, those that must endure this. *sigh*.**

**Good luck, all…**

**xxx**

**-Live :D**

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><p>There comes a point when you go far enough into the forest that the trees begin to fade.<p>

They are bare and slender and white as bone, their branches still reaching heavenward as so many fingers groping toward the sky. Skeleton trees, neither dead nor alive.

They are the ghosts of trees, frozen in time, destined neither to grow nor fall.

I stand now looking over them, and I know that I have been here before. It is as far as I have ever been into the woods, the edge of this forest of bone.

Never has Grandmother brought me further than this. I can see the look in her eyes even now, an expression of great grief, before she would turn and walk away without a word.

I step forward, and their branches lace above my head. It is utterly silent, and I try not to think about this deadness around me. I sing to myself instead, any song that comes to mind, one after another, song after song.

But my voice breaks in the stillness, and I fall silent once again. I feel strange – unnerved and yet at peace, and I do not like it, this unidentifiable feeling.

I stare hard at the ground in front of my feet, looking for branches, roots, or logs waiting there to trip me, but there was a noticeable absence of them, or anything littering the ground. Odd, that. But I continued onward.

A sudden wind picks up, blowing a swirl of dead leaves by my face. I look up then, alarmed, not as much because of the wind, but because of the sound I heard, soft and elusive, carried upon it.

I look around. Did I imagine it?

_Whhhhoooosssshhhh…_

The sound of the wind again, and I was listening hard.

_Whoooosssh…_

The sound of the skeleton trees, blowing in the wind.

_whhhooossshhhhrustlecreeeak…_

And again it comes.

Singing.

I was certain. It comes from behind me – no, in front – from my right, my left, everywhere. Voices, echoing from the skeleton trees, the wind and the air, and in my head. They sing, they scream, they weep and wail and cry out in anguish. They want to be released, but they are trapped; they wish to be heard, but I cannot understand what they are saying.

I run.

As fast as I can, blindly, without thought. I run and run, and do not stop until my legs grow wobbly and give out beneath me, and I fall to my knees. And there I sit, gasping, trembling, disoriented and confused and terrified. _I must be insane. Those voices…_

_The voices…_

"You have heard them."

This voice is gentle, soothing. But I am afraid.

Still shaking, I look up.

And there she is, her smooth, fair face turned in my direction, her hands clasped before her. Her hair is long and light and falls in soft waves down past her hips, and her large, wide eyes, shaped like willow leaves, are a startling, clear blue. She is dressed in white, and she seems to glow.

"They are the voices of those passed."

I find myself holding my breath, frozen where I sit, frozen like the skeleton trees.

"I am Galadriel." She spoke slowly, deliberately, with a strong voice, and an accent I could not place. "And you…" She paused, and smiled softly.

"Elaerinya… '_sunrise'…" _She lifted her arms toward me. "Come." She turned, then looked back, her eyes shining at me. "You need not be afraid."

Enchanted, unaware, unthinking, I stand. And I follow.


End file.
